Why do agents that don’t understand the foreclosure process take a foreclosure or short sale listing?
In theory it sounds just as easy as a traditional sale, right? You have a house you want to sell and I want to sell it for you and get us both paid. While that’s true, I’ve seen several occasions where the agent that took the listing didn’t understand enough about the different options available to actually help their client to the best of their ability. A few weeks ago I noticed a house with an auction date in the next month that was still on the market. I called the agent to find out what was going on with it and if they would consider cash offers below the listing price due to the time constraint the seller was facing. They very politely told me that the house would have to be sold at list price (which was roughly 15k over market value in my opinion) to satisfy what was owed to the mortgage company. I asked the agent why he didn’t attempt to negotiate a short sale with the lender and their response was “what’s a short sale?” I gave him a brief explanation so he’d know in the future if he ever ran into a situation like this again.
While the agent was very nice, and actually answered their phone (which is rarer than you might expect) they simply didn’t understand enough about the options available to do what was best for their client and be proactive about getting in touch with someone at the mortgage company to inquire about the possibility of a short sale. Now, their client wouldn’t have gotten any money from the short sale but it doesn’t sound like he was going to get anything with what was owed realistically anyways. Instead they would have allowed them additional time to sell the property for an agreed upon price and liquidated the entire debt owed for whatever the house was sold for. If you’re going to offer to help people facing foreclosure, you’re doing your client a disservice by not understanding how the ENTIRE process works or what options are available.
My favorite story about short sales here in Las Vegas was when I had an offer rejected on a short sale, not countered, but rejected. It struck me as strange since that’s very uncommon for short sales that don’t have an agreed price for the sale from the bank. I called the agent and they said their client would absolutely not entertain our offer. I asked the agent if they had explained to their client that they would not get any money from the sale of the house if it’s a short sale. The agent was silent. I told her it was listed as a short sale on the MLS and asked if she was familiar with how these types of sales worked. She tells me she hit the button marked “short sale” because she didn’t want a long sale, she wanted it sold quickly. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. I wish there was a magic button for that too!
